Arraying California With PhotoVoltaics
A Not So Modest Proposal
Given California's energy catastrophe, crisis, problem, glitch, opportunity (take your pick), EcoWorld decided to ask the following question:
If every single-family detached house in California was equipped with a photovoltaic system similar to what SMUD's Pioneer PV Program is offering, how much energy would that amount to and what would the numbers look like? (We assume with 6 million buyers the cost would drop to $5,000 per unit.)
| Detached houses in California |
6,800,000 |
| Avg annual kilowatt hours used - household |
7,200 |
| Avg annual megawatt hours used - all detached houses |
49,300,000 |
| Avg annual mwh savings with photovoltaics - household |
3,600 |
| Photovoltaic system cost |
$ 5,000 |
| Price per kwh |
$ .08 |
| Annual electricity cost savings - per household |
$ 288 |
| System pay back time - years |
17 |
| Cost of systems - all - (billions of $) |
$ 34.26 |
| Cost savings - all - lifetime - (billions of $) |
$ 33.55 |
| CO2 reduction - per household - lifetime - lbs |
83,800 |
| CO2 reduction - per household - lifetime - metric tons |
38 |
| CO2 reduction - all - lifetime - (billions of lbs) |
562 |
| CO2 reduction - all - lifetime - metric tons |
255,000 |
More to come: additional numbers and some graphical comparisons
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